


Types

by NervousAsexual



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Asexual Character, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 00:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11116254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Vivienne and Varric compare types.





	Types

It was, it seemed, easy to get lost in Skyhold. There was a near-constant stream of underlings bumping into Vivienne's balcony from the moment she moved in. They saw the scaffolding that abutted the balcony, could plainly see there was no way through to the outer rooms, and yet they came anyway. Why?

"They have to find another way around," she told the Inquisitor.

"Makes sense," Cadash said. "It's easy to get outside. You just go up on the parapets and jump down."

Vivienne laughed, picturing a gaggle of shrieking builders and maids falling right out of the sky. "Not everyone has your penchant for jumping from high places, dear."

Cadash shrugged. "You learn to take a fall after a while. Besides, it's not so high. Enough to knock the wind out of you, maybe, but not to break anything."

"I'll take your word for it, my dear." She had seen Cadash jump from the Spymaster's tower and land on the ground floor without a scratch. Then again, she'd also seen Cadash fall off a two-foot tall fence and sprain her ankle.

"Admiring the dwarf?" Varric asked her one day as she watched Cadash plummet from the ceiling.

"I don't know how she does it."

"I meant me."

"Oh. In that case I'm afraid I'm not. You aren't really my type."

"You have a type!" Varric looked less surprised and more amused. "I figured you didn't have a type. Thought you were more like me."

"Indeed? And what, pray tell, is your type?"

"Nobody at all."

Her curiosity must have shown because he gave her a rather irritating little wink.

"Can't give away all my secrets, can I, First Enchanter?"

What a strange man, she reflected. Lucky for him he was amusing.

"What about Sera?" Varric asked one day in the field.

"What about her?" They were knee-deep in river muck, in some Maker-forsaken corner of the Exalted Plains and there were still an unknown number of rifts hidden in the wilderness around them. Now, she thought, is hardly the time...

"Is she your type?"

An oversized sigh echoed through her. "No, Varric, Sera is not my type."

Varric trudged forward and sank even deeper into mud. He held Bianca out over his head.

"How about Iron Bull?" he asked, gesturing ahead toward the qunari in question. Bull himself tromped onward. The Inquisitor perched on his shoulders, safely away from the mud, and examined a crudely drawn map of the Plains.

At that Vivienne had to laugh.

"What? He's got it all. Big, strong, broad shoulders, mysterious scars..." Varric put a hand over his eye in simulation of an eyepatch. "Antlers you can hang your laundry on..."

"My type is not sentient drying rack."

Varric gave a scandalized gasp. "Madame de Fer, how cold!"

Vivienne conjured up some icy armor in response.

"Alright, alright. What about Cullen? Josephine? The seeker? Or, Maker forbid..." Varric slapped a hand to his cheek in mock surprise. "Cole?"

"Why are you so interested, Varric?" She cast a freezing spell at the mud in front of him. It formed a solid if not terribly clean platform to stand on.

"Oh, thank Andraste." He fell forward onto the muddy ice and dragged himself up out of the muck. "Like I told you, First Enchanter, I'm curious if your type is the same is my type."

"Which is to say, no type at all." Vivienne stepped up onto the ice and looked sadly down at her formerly snow-white boots. They would never be the same.

"It's good to have people like yourself. I've never met another person with no type."

She thought of Bastien. "I wouldn't say I have no type. Just a very, very specific type."

Varric brushed a bit of mud from that mysterious crossbow. "I told myself that too, at first. Nothing good came out of it."

"I've already met someone who is my specific type. We are actually quite happy."

"Ah." He looked a little sad at that. "I thought I had too, once."

"Bianca."

He raised an eyebrow but did not deny it. "What we had was fun for a while but eventually it turned out she wanted some things I couldn't give her."

In the distance one of Bull's legs sunk lower in the mud than the other and he and Cadash nearly went face first into the muck.

"Shockingly, one of the things she was looking for in a romantic relationship was romance. So we went our separate ways and pretty soon she found somebody who could give her power and romance both."

"But not your razor sharp wit, presumably."

Varric smirked. "Maybe not. But two out of three ain't bad, right?"

She considered saying something supportive, but then wasn't that what Bastien gave her after all? Power and romance, and so, so much more.

"But you don't want to hear my sob story. What about you? How'd you manage to track down your one specific type?"

"Oh, I didn't track him down, he tracked me. Actually, I think I formed my own type around him."

"Hmm." Varric gave a shrug. "At least you won't die alone."

"I don't want to break your fragile optimism, darling, but everybody dies alone in the end."

"Thank you for that."

She thought of Bastien again, dying peacefully but alone in his own mind, and this time she thought of Nicoline. Sweet Nicoline who didn't mind at all, who proudly considered her a friend. "Romance isn't everything. Trust me on this. You can and will find some one who wants what you want."

He glanced up at her and smiled a small smile. "I suppose the odds are pretty good I'm not the  _only_ one of my kind."

She smiled too. "Exactly so."

"I think we may be stuck," Iron Bull was saying.

"Throw me to shore," Cadash said. "I'll find a rope."

Bull picked her up bodily and tossed her onto the shore.

Vivienne sighed and brought out her staff again. "I suppose I should help them. Will you be alright here?"

"Sure. But Vivienne?"

"Yes, Varric?"

"One more question." He jerked his head toward Cadash. "About the Inquisitor... is she your type?"

She laughed and cast a good strong freezing spell toward the riverbank. "Can't give away all my secrets, can I, Ser Tethras?"

And he laughed too, and turned his face up toward the sun.


End file.
